The company is trialing a method for premium billboard ads to
bought programmatically — using DoubleClick's automated
processes, rather than having to manually place an order with an
outdoor advertising company upfront — for the first time.

It's a really significant move for Google and for the outdoor
advertising industry.

There are no plans to roll the capability out beyond this initial
test yet. But if the project proves successful, advertisers might
soon be able to buy billboard ads using Google's DoubleClick
technology, which will pull in historical and real-time data
signals — including audience, weather, travel information,
sporting events, and scores — to decide which creative messages
to display, which billboards to display them on, and the best
time for them to run.

The idea is that passers-by will see the most relevant ads for
the time of day and location they are in. If the passing audience
isn't the right one to show an ad to, then the technology opts
not to serve an ad.

Google's trial began earlier this month in London and will run
until November. The ads are being served to premium digital
screens in transport, roadside locations, and city centers across
the UK. Google has bought the advertising placements upfront and
is using DoubleClick to decide which ads for which of its brands
are most appropriate to serve at particular locations and to
determine the best time of day to display them.

The concept of programmatic out-of-home advertising isn't brand
new. A number of ad tech companies including
Xaxis,
Rubicon Project, and
TubeMogul have recently launched programmatic out-of-home
offerings. But what makes this trial different is that it's
Google's DoubleClick,
which dominates the internet display advertising market.
Practically every advertiser uses DoubleClick, and now they could
soon be using it to manage their outdoor advertising too.

Another differentiator is that Google has been trialing
programmatic billboards at some of the UK's most sought-after
out-of-home locations including at London's Waterloo Station,
Euston Road, and the Vauxhall roundabout.

There's a "common misconception" that merging the digital and
out-of-home worlds is straightforward

A YouTube ad at the
Vauxhall roundabout.Google

Google's Media Lab team has partnered with out-of-home media
owners JCDecaux, Ocean Outdoor, and Outdoor Plus. It is also
using a technology platform called OpenLoop, owned by
GrandVisual. And the company has partnered with a number of
creative and media agencies including Talon, OMD UK, Essence,
R/GA, and Co:Collective. It's a big effort.

Tim Collier, mobile solutions lead for Google's DoubleClick, told
Business Insider that the trial is just a "proof of concept" test
at the moment, but that it has allowed all the companies involved
to understand what they might need to change in order to
connect the out-of-home and digital worlds.

He said: "There is a common misconception that the merging of
these two industries is straightforward. This test has
highlighted a number of areas that are fundamentally different
and which will require further development and integration before
this becomes a market reality. For example: serving dynamic
creative, how we look at impressions versus credits, reporting,
audience data, buying models, yield management, and latency."

A
Google app ad programmatically served on Euston Road,
London.Google

For Google itself, the campaign will help the company understand
whether it can use the media it buys up front more efficiently
across its portfolio of brands.

Collier explained: "If we buy a million credits that would
normally be served to one advertiser with a degree of wastage,
can we better utilize that same million impressions across all of
our advertisers to drive maximum efficiency?"

Asked what success looks like for this project, Collier said
Google wants to achieve greater reach among its target audience
beyond its normal out-of-home campaigns. The company also wants
to understand whether capitalizing on real-time events — such as
changes in the weather, or sports scores — will drive up other
metrics like brand lift with that audience.

Google has been using an ad placement at the Old Street
Roundabout — also known as London's "Silicon Roundabout" — to
test this "real-time" concept (but not the programmatic ad
buying)
since March this year. The digital billboards display
relevant local information, the weather, and information on what
people are currently searching for.